Saturday, September 28, 2013

Keeping Up with Progress in Mobile Medical Apps

Patients with diabetes can already use smartphones to monitor the level of sugar in their blood, and doctors can whip out their tablets to read X-rays and perform ultrasounds or electrocardiograms.Those functions represent just the tip of the iceberg in a coming revolution in mobile medical applications, or "apps," intended for use on mobile phones and tablets. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) encourages innovation and is excited about the prospects that mobile medical apps offer for providing better care and greater patient involvement in their own health.At the same time, FDA wants to ensure the safety and effectiveness of the small percentage of mobile medical apps that could be harmful if they didn't work properly.FDA has issued a guidance document to give mobile app creators a clear and predictable roadmap to help them determine whether or not their products will be the focus of FDA's oversight. To protect consumers and encourage innovation, while at the same time providing the same level of confidence consumers have with other medical devices, the guidance document states that FDA will focus its oversight on medical mobile apps that meet the definition of device in the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and are intended to:

transform a mobile device into a medical device regulated by FDA; or

be used as an accessory to a medical device regulated by the FDA.

FDA intends to exercise enforcement discretion for other mobile apps. This focuses FDA's regulatory priorities on the small subset of mobile medical apps that could present a greater risk to health.

Examples Offer Clarity

Here is an example that demonstrates how this plays out in the real world: FDA oversees software medical devices that calculate the amount of radiation that should be given to a cancer patient. If the device were to give the wrong dose recommendation, it clearly would threaten the patient's health. Logically, a mobile medical app that calculates radiation dosage should have the same FDA oversight as the traditional device.The draft guidance for mobile medical apps, published in July 2011, elicited more than 130 public comments that the FDA reviewed and considered when writing the final guidance."Most were positive; people generally liked the draft proposal and understood which types of mobile medical apps we would regulate," says Bakul Patel, M.S., MBA, senior policy advisor to the director of FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health. However, some who commented asked for more examples of what would not fall within the focus of FDA's regulatory oversight—a suggestion incorporated in the final guidance just issued.Patel explained, for example, that FDA would regulate a mobile medical app that helps measure blood pressure by controlling the inflation and deflation of a blood pressure cuff (a blood pressure monitor), just as it regulates traditional devices that measure blood pressure. A false reading by either blood pressure device would deliver a false diagnosis and perhaps even lead to treatment that could endanger patients.However, although a mobile app that doctors or patients use to log and track trends with their blood pressure is a medical device, as explained in the final mobile medical app guidance, such mobile apps would not fall within the current focus of FDA's regulatory oversight. Similarly, mobile medical apps that recommend calorie or carbohydrate intakes to people who track what they eat also are not within the current focus of FDA's regulatory oversight. While such mobile apps may have health implications, FDA believes the risks posed by these devices are low and such apps can empower patients to be more engaged in their health care.In the final mobile medical apps guidance, FDA clarifies that its mobile medical apps policy does not apply to the use of smartphones or tablets themselves. Providers of mobile medical apps, such as the iTunes app store, would not be treated as medical device manufacturers.

A Growing Trend

The mobile app market is anticipated to grow 25 percent annually for some time, according to the market research firm Kalorama Information; companies are investing record amounts in developing new health apps. Consumers will be finding more and more options from which to choose.FDA intends to stay current with the expertise needed to evaluate mobile medical apps for which safe use and accuracy are critical to public health by hiring additional skilled engineers, including software engineers, and medical officers with device expertise. FDA also works closely with experts in academia and is now reviewing its current practices involved in evaluating software used in mobile medical apps.So far, FDA has cleared nearly 100 mobile medical apps. These mobile medical apps include blood pressure monitors, apps that send real-time readings of electrocardiographs to your doctor, and apps that access vital signs for use in emergency cardiac care. Despite the growth of mobile medical apps, consumers should still talk to their health care providers about decisions related to their health care."Mobile apps are unleashing amazing creativity, and we intend to encourage these exciting innovations," says Patel. "At the same time, we have set risk-based priorities and are focusing FDA's oversight on mobile apps that are devices for which safety and effectiveness are critical."This article appears on FDA's Consumer Updates page, which features the latest on all FDA-regulated products.Sept 23, 2013http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm368634.htm?source=govdelivery&utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery

Britanny "Today, there are people who are really in an emergency situation...

Alert waves Britain. A regional group against the " evils of waves "September 23, 2013 at 07h26 - React to this articleYesterday at Pontivy , representatives of 200 Brittany associations have created a wave alert network Britain, whose objective is to inform the public about the harmful effects of electromagnetic waves ."Today, there are people who are really in an emergency situation. Who can no longer live in their home and end up in tents on the edge of a forest or in the countryside , "says Dominique Le Gal, president of an association of the Côtes- d'Armor. Yesterday at the Palais des congrès de Pontivy thirty members of collective struggle against electromagnetic waves , representing about 200 Breton associations, gathered to draw attention to the problem of electromagnetic waves. "There are people who are very poorly it is a true allergy can lead to socialization . They can not work and even suffer the nuisance of their neighbors , "says Carl Chatagnon president Alterondes 35.firstThe first regional meeting of public associations and Britain was the opportunity to create a network alert Britain waves whose objective is to inform the public about the harmful effects of electromagnetic waves. He also wants to challenge the authorities and politicians, so that they can apply the precautionary principle to protect populations.La Britain as other regions experiencing a proliferation of mobile phone masts , particularly due to the arrival of 4G , but also other pollutants such as WiMax , WiFi ...Call for allergy sufferersWave alert Britain Demand, specifically, the Regional Council of Brittany and councils, to implement recommendations made by the European Union, namely the reduction of exposure levels , particularly among the youngest populations in the schools , colleges, schools, kindergartens and hospitals and also nursing homes , which are their compétences.D the other hand , members of the public wishing to make an inventory of the sick or people allergic to air . " We appeal to all people with hyper- EHS so that they make themselves known ," asks Carl Chatagnon.Enfin , more broadly , they call that "the precautionary principle should be applied to the health risk now recognized by many studies , including the latest Bio- initiative report in 2012 , and the wired solution is preferred " Contact: . alerte.ondes.bretagne @gmail.com

This is an urgent call to come to a rally next Sunday for Christiane Le Dauphin, the electrosensitive woman in France that is on a hunger strike in order to get a White Zone. (a place with no microwave radiation)

Register to rally on September 22 in Pontivy, France.

Sunday, September 22 at the Convention Centre of Pontivy from 10h to 16h.

Please pass this on to anyone you know that could possibly attend this rally. Please also let your friends and family know what it going on in France concerning wireless radiation. The rest of the world needs to know.

France: Allergic to Electromagnetic Fields, She Has Started a Hunger Strike

Mobile phone antenna in Bretagne (AFP: Fred Tanneau)Allergic to EMF, she has started a hunger strikeby Sylvaine Salliou, bretagne.france3.fr, 6 September 2013 (Thank you to WEEP News for publishing the translation of this article from French.)

She does not tolerate the waves of mobile phones, wifi makes her sick. Christiane Le Dauphin is allergic to magnetic fields. This resident of Boistrudan (35 ) lives a living hell. Today, she began a hunger strike and demanded the creation of areas without radio waves.

When you meet Christiane Le Dauphin, you come to her without a cell phone. This woman has been allergic to waves for several years, as others are allergic to gluten or eggs. She moved to Boistrudan in Ille-et-Vilaine two years ago , believing it to be more sheltered from magnetic fields. Until then, she lived in Rennes, but her life was in danger. At Boistrudan, the evils were mitigated in the beginning. She had less headaches, she slept almost normally and especially, her digestive and memory disorders were less painful. But in recent months, it started all over again.

She wants to live in a white zone

She almost never leaves home, she lives with a mesh of copper on her head in a sleeping bag also made of copper wire. But despite all these precautions, she is unwell and wants to start a hunger strike to express her despair. She never wanted to cut herself off from society by isolating herself in a remote cave. She just wants to live in a place without waves, without magnetic fields in a white zone. Except that there are almost no more white zones in France. The waves are everywhere - in our cordless phones, our electrical appliances, in the low energy light bulbs, baby phones and of course, cell phones ... Today, there are 72 million mobile phones in France, there were 120 billion minutes used last year. The country is covered with antennas, there were more than 78,000 in the city and in the countryside in 2012. And the country has more and more electrosensitive persons who are struggling for recognition of their illness.

Letter from Christiane Le Dauphin, talking about her hunger strike!!!_________________________________________________

Christiane Le Dauphin invites the media , elected officials and administrative authorities to come and listen to the life-threatening emergency situation in which it is located:

Friday, September 6 at 14:30 to Boistrudan (Town Hall Square ).

Thank you to leave off your cell phone in the car , avoid perfumes and for journalists to provide wireline equipment .

At the end of the document: the moving letter to her daughter.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

"I send you these words to assist a person in danger.I suffer from intolerance to wave mobile and chemicals .My state requires a shelved electromagnetic fields could result in serious consequences for my health.

For months, with the help of friends , I'm looking to rent a small isolated house. I can not find it .

For months, for years, the alert is launched by independent scientists, by associations, some elected by the Council of Europe, to create white areas in particular. Areas that would shelter without harmful waves , where the electro- hypersensitive could live .

These calls are ignored by the authorities did not even deign , most of the time to answer our letters . Despite the remarkable work done by the associations, emergencies are not taken into account. These associations , composed mainly of sick people can not bear the weight of an emergency.

Today, I'm exhausted .I am dying by inches where I live .If you can call live is to burrow literally, to suffer martyrdom because of the pulse wave, not being able to go shopping, go to the dentist or hospital, to have a social life reduced to nothing, to see wither by the day .

It is in a final burst of energy , since Monday, September 2 , I decided to feed me less and I am determined to go to a hunger strike , if necessary. I'll get very quickly after my last strength , I do know that too .

If I try this ultimate appeal is to finally find a place to live .It is also trying to make common cause hearing : the need for whites. This is a vital issue.

How long will it take desperate for this requirement to be considered acts ? "

I recently read that Tucson Medical Center, in Tucson, Arizona is an award winning Most Wired Hospital. Does this award go to the mostwired or wireless hospital? Patients at the Tuscon Medical Center report that the hospital IT network is operating wirelessly.

Thank you,

Debbie Rubin

From: Libby Kelley

Subject: A Tucson Arizona Hospital that irradiates newborn babies!

Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2013 16:05:35 -0700

The article below about Tucson Medical Center, in Tucson, Arizona, proudly announcing they are an award winning wireless hospital brings me to relate a story I just heard from a credible source about a woman who gave recently birth to a baby at that hospital. I have been following the reports on TMC as they are the first wireless hospital in the state to install a wireless campus. I had a bad experience there myself about a years ago, due to over-exposure to WiFi. See this report below from a new mother, edited to remove any identifying information for privacy reasons:

It appears that TMC is irradiating all of the new born babies with a wide variety of wireless radiation devices. They were inducing headaches into me and the baby was restless there. We came home and the baby is doing much better there. There was a wireless router right above the baby's crib and they have some sort of other Cisco wireless networking equipment outside of the door.

They may be in violation of co-location issues with their devices in some areas of the hospital and minimum separation issues regarding tall people. All of their wireless routers appear to be mounted to the ceiling tiles. In some corridors, you can see many wireless devices poking through the ceiling. Unfortunately, the maternity ward appears to be amongst the worst parts of the hospital for wireless power density. I was picking up hotspots of 6.6 mW/cm2 as I walked around the maternity ward. They are also using RFID for security door control to the maternity ward. The syringe pumps have operating wi-fi signals in them and these pumps are kept next to the mothers.

I want TMC to know about this, but need your help as we do not want to be the ones to bring it up. An article about TMC is below.

Tucson Medical Center has been recognized for the second year in a row as a “Most Wired” hospital, leading the way in information technology across the nation.

As one of only two Arizona hospitals to secure the honor, TMC is the only one in Southern Arizona to make the Most Wired list, which recognizes those hospitals that comprehensively use technologies to improve care for patients, to streamline data collection and to boost efficiencies.

The hospitals were culled from 1,713 hospitals represented in surveys by Hospitals & Health Networks, a publication of the American Hospital Association.

“TMC for years has been focused on finding ways to leverage technology to improve patient care,” said TMC’s Chief Information Officer Frank Marini. “I was very pleased that the organization has been recognized for the hard work and the investment it has taken to get to this point.”

“It is not an easy designation to reach, so I think it says something about the progressive culture we have here at TMC,” Marini continued.

With the rapidly changing pace of healthcare today, technology will absolutely provide a strong foundation to keep abreast of these changes, as well as play a crucial role in the improvement of patient care while intelligently managing resources.

“We all know that being “Most Wired” is not the end goal, but the conduit to providing better patient care, improving patient outcomes and leveraging data to make a positive impact on the health of the people in our community,” stated Susan Snedaker, Director of Information Systems for TMC. “ For these reasons, we are proud to be among the “Most Wired”.”

Changes in Royal Society Safety Code 6 Review Expert Panel

New Chair instead of Dan Krewski, and two new members instead of Dr. Louise Lemyre and Dr. Brian Christie

Dr. Paul Demers, Chair (University of Toronto)Paul Demers is the Director of the Occupational Cancer Research Centre, based within Cancer Care Ontario and is also the Scientific Director of CAREX Canada, a workplace and environmental carcinogen surveillance program, based at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver. He is a Professor with the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto and a Clinical Professor with the University of British Columbia. Paul is an epidemiologist whose research has focused primarily on the impact of pesticides, asbestos, wood dust, and other occupational and environmental exposures on cancer, lung disease, and heart disease. In addition, he has an interest in both occupational carcinogen and cancer surveillance. He has been a member of many national and international expert panels dealing with occupational and environmental cancer for organizations such as the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the U.S. National Toxicology Program, the U.S. Institute of Medicine, the Canadian Cancer Society, and the Council of Canadian Academies.

Dr. Bryan Kolb, FRSC (University of Lethbridge)Bryan Kolb is a native of Calgary and is currently a Professor in the Department Neuroscience at the University of Lethbridge, where he has been since 1976. He received his PhD from Pennsylvania State University in 1973 and did postdoctoral work at the U of Western Ontario and the Montreal Neurological Institute. His recent work has focused on the development of the prefrontal cortex and how neurons of the cerebral cortex change in response to various developmental factors including hormones, experience, stress, drugs, neurotrophins, and injury, and how these changes are related to behaviour. Bryan Kolb has published 5 books, including two textbooks with Ian Whishaw (Fundamentals of Human Neuropsychology, Sixth Edition; Introduction to Brain and Behavior, Fourth Edition), and over 350 articles and chapters. Kolb is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a Killam Fellow of the Canada Council. He is currently a member of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research program in the Child Brain Development program.

Today we also added links to two new papers from LennartHardell's group on tumor risks from wireless phones. Checkthem out and a number of other important new papers.All on our home page:http://microwavenews.com

Duty to Warn:

America’s Dementia and Mental Ill Health Epidemic: It Turns Out That the Drugs may be the Problem

Gary G. Kohls, MD

Tens of millions of unsuspecting Americans, who are mired deeply in the mental "health" system, have actually been madecrazy, homicidal, suicidal and neurologically disabled by the use of or the withdrawal from commonly-prescribed, brain-disabling, brain-damaging neurotoxic psychiatric drugs that have been cavalierly handed out like candy, with false assurance from a co-opted FDA. These synthetic prescription drugs are often prescribed in untested and unapproved combinations by unaware but well-intentioned prescribing physicians who have been under the mesmerizing influence of slick propaganda campaigns bankrolled by obscenely profitable multinational pharmaceutical corporations.

That is the conclusion of a multitude of courageous psychiatric and pharmaceutical industry whistleblowers (see some pertinent websites below), including many authors of books. Most of these whistleblowers have been black-listed by BigPharma, psychiatry, medical journals and even the mainstream media because of the magnitude of the unwelcome information they have revealed. In defense of most prescribing physicians, many of the revelations about the dangers of these synthetic drugs have been intentionally hidden from them. In any case, the whistleblowers’ revelations should be shaking up physicians, their drug-taking patients and the drug industry, as well as Wall Street.

I highlight two of these courageous whistleblowers below.

Practicing psychiatrist and scholar Grace E. Jackson, MD has written two important books that should alert psychiatric drug prescribers and the consumers of those drugs about the many dangers of those drugs. Dr. Jackson has done meticulous review and interpretations of the voluminous neuroscience research literature as well as the clinical neuropsychiatric literature and has proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, how dementia-causing and brain damaging are many of the drugs that the drug industry has falsely reassured us as being “safe and effective”.

Drug-induced Dementia: A Perfect Crime

Dr. Jackson’s most dramatically ground-breaking book was published in 2009 and was titled Drug-Induced Dementia: A Perfect Crime. She has documented the often disastrous consequences of the chronic ingestion of any of the 5 major classes of psychiatric drugs (antidepressants, antipsychotics, psycho-stimulants, tranquilizers and anti-seizure/”mood-stabilizer” drugs).

Drug-induced Dementia: A Perfect Crime presents compelling evidence that any of the psychotropic drugs that target brain and nerve cells can cause microscopic, anatomic, biochemical, clinical and radiological evidence of brain shrinkage and other signs of brain damage, which can result in clinically-diagnosable dementia, premature death and a variety of other related brain disorders that can even mimic diagnosable mental illnesses “of unknown cause”. Jackson’s first book, Rethinking Psychiatric Drugs: A Guide for Informed Consent was an equally sobering warning about many of the hidden dangers of psychiatric drugs.

Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill

Investigative journalist and health science writer Robert Whitaker has devoted many years of his life researching the serious downsides of psychiatric drugs. He has reported his ground-breaking results in two books, the first of which was titled Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill (2002). In that book Whitaker explored the published literature and discovered that, since psychiatric drugs (the first one being Thorazine) began being widely prescribed in the US in the mid-1950s, there has been a 600% increase in the total and permanent disabilities of millions of psychiatric drug-takers in the United States. This uniquely First World epidemic of “mental health” disability has resulted in the life-long, taxpayer-supported, Social Security disabilities of rapidly increasing numbers of psychiatric patients who are now unable to live happy lives or be productive, taxpaying members of society.

In Whitaker’s second book Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America (2010), he provides additional, overwhelming proof of these sobering realities. He documents the history of the powerful forces behind the relatively new field of psychopharmacology and its major shapers, promoters and beneficiaries, namely BigPharma and the medical and psychiatric industries. Psychiatric drugs, whose developers, marketers and salespersons are all in the employ of the giant drug companies, are far more dangerous than these industries are willing to admit: Psychiatric drugs, it turns out, are fully capable of disabling body, brain and spirit – often permanently.

Jackson and Whitaker have done powerful services to humanity by presenting previously hidden, but very convincing evidence from the scientific literature to support their theses, that it is the drugs and not the so-called “mental illnesses” that are causing the epidemics of dementia and “mental illness” disability in America.

Aware, compassionate physicians and their aware patients should now be motivated to be wary of any synthetic chemicals that can cross the blood/brain barrier from the circulation into the brain. All of them are capable of altering the brain, sometimes permanently, in ways previously unknown to medical science and unsuspected by them and the FDA, especially in cases of polypharmacy and/or long-term or high dose use.

The sad truth is that there are long lists of serious, disabling short-term and long-term toxic effects from each and every one of these commonly prescribed psychiatric drugs. And it seems to be the norm that patients do not receive much information warning them about those dangers. One of the common problems is the fact that many of these potent drugs can be addicting (dependency-inducing), and therefore decreasing the dosage of the drug can cause withdrawal symptoms (that are different from the original symptoms that brought the patient to the doctor) that can mimic mental illness and keep the patient taking the drug..

It is getting nearly impossible to fly over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Tragically, the prescribing of psych drugs “for life” has become synonymous with standard mental health “treatment” for almost every one of the 374 fabricated mental illness labels in the last version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. And putting people on pills (and rarely taking them off) has become the community standard of care in American medicine - increasingly so ever since the introduction of the so-called “anti-schizophrenic” “major tranquilizer” “miracle” drug Thorazine in the mid-1950s. (Thorazine was probably the drug that Jack Nicholson’s character Randall McMurphy was coerced into taking at “medication time” in the Academy Award-winning movie “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”.)

Thorazine and all the other first generation antipsychotic, “zombification” drugs are now universally known to have been an iatrogenic (ie, doctor-caused) disaster because of their serious long-term, brain-damaging effects that resulted in a multitude of permanent brain damage manifesting as tardive (delayed) dyskinesia, dysmetria, dystonia, dementia and Parkinson’s disease, all of which are commonly caused by antipsychotic drugs, even the “atypical” ones. Young people on such drugs are now developing Parkinson’s disease in childhood!

Thorazine and all the other “me-too” drugs like Prolixin, Mellaril, Navane, etc, are synthetic “tricyclic” chemical compounds similar in molecular structure to the tricyclic first generation “antidepressants” like Elavil and the similarly toxic, obesity-inducing, diabetogenic, "atypical” “anti-psychotic” second-generation drugs like Clozaril, Zyprexa and Seroquel.

Thorazine was originally developed in Europe as an industrial dye. That doesn’t sound so good although it may not be so unusual because Big Chemistry and Big Pharma both deal in synthetic chemical compounds. One only has to consider Depakote (valproic acid), a popular drug initially approved as an anti-epilepsy drug that was originally developed as an organic solvent. One could predict that Depakote, capable of dissolving fat, would be toxic to organs that contain fatty tissue, including human livers, pancreases and brains – as indeed it is. And yet it is still widely prescribed world-wide in the treatment of seizures, although, because so many infants and toddlers died from it, Depakote is relatively contraindicated in children below the age of 10.

Just like most ruthless corporations, BigPharma has a compulsive drive to make as much money as possible by continuously expanding market share and increasing ”shareholder value” (share price, dividends and the next quarter’s financial report) by whatever means necessary.

Both the prescribers and the swallowers of BigPharma’s drugs have succumbed to cunning marketing campaigns. The prescribers get seduced by attractive drug company representatives of the opposite sex and the free “pens, pizzas and post-it notes” in the office, and the patients get brain-washed by the inane and unbelievable (if one has intact critical thinking skills) commercials on TV that urge the watcher to “ask your doctor” about the latest unaffordable wannabe blockbuster drug while quickly glossing over the lethal and sub-lethal adverse effects in the fine print. If one gets a prescription for a drug that still has patent protection, prepare to pay anywhere from $100 - $300 per month, no matter if the production costs are pennies per pill.

There is no mental health disability epidemic in the third world

Interestingly, Whitaker points out that there is no such epidemic of mental illness disability in Third World nations because costly psych drugs are not prescribed as cavalierly as in First World nations. Third World poor people with first episodes of any serious mental health problem are not seen by psychiatrists. Rather, they are first nurtured and cared for by caring families in local communities (and not drugged) and, if drugs are used, they are only used short term – before the patient’s brain structure has been altered. Third world psychiatric patients are often cured without the use of any drug whatsoever and therefore those populations have far less chronic mental health problems than their counterparts in First World nations.

Jackson and Whitaker - and any number of other whistle-blowing authors and practitioners who have been questioning the knee-jerk use of potentially neurotoxic drugs for decades now - are understandably widely ignored by mainstream entities that somehow benefit from the highly profitable, pro-drug culture. Avoiding psychiatric drugs, although decidedly best for keeping brains healthy, is not best for the prescription psychiatric drug business.

The good news is that many critically-thinking scientists, holistic practitioners and assorted “psychiatric survivors” are coming to the realization that it is the drugs - and not the so-called “mental disorders” - that are contributing to our nation’s epidemics of dementia and mental illness disability.

Mental health practitioners who prescribe these drugs must seriously consider the medico-legal implications of continuing to follow the current community standards of care that should be changing with the new information noted above. Partly because of the common phenomenon of cognitive dissonance, many practitioners will initially refuse to allow themselves to be exposed to new truths. Some practitioners will briefly look at the new information and – even then - dismiss the new information that challenges or disproves their old belief systems. Some will reluctantly and belatedly consider the new truths and forget all about it, and others will, with some distress, try to adapt to the new information. And patients will often sort it out in a similar fashion, even though some patients may have brains that have been so cognitively impaired that they will be unable to recognize their impairment.

Hopefully, in some day in the near future, prescribing brain-damaging drugs without obtaining fully informed consent from the patient will be considered malpractice. Until then, patients and their loved ones will need to do their own research.

FDA approval doesn’t mean a drug has been well-tested or is safe or effective long-term

I know that most health caregivers working for modern medical facilities are over-worked and often double-booked and therefore find themselves relying on 20 second sound bites about drug “therapy” from BigPharma’s sales reps and its paid academics. With their noses to the grindstone, they consistently miss hearing the sobering news related above. But this issue is too important to ignore. After all, these drugs are potentially lethal substances that are administered in sublethal doses and some (maybe most?) are known to accumulate in brain tissue. In a 4 week animal study from the 1990s, for example, Prozac was found to accumulate in the brain at a concentration 20 times higher than its concentration in the bloodstream! And yet, these drugs are still being cleverly marketed as non-toxic, and ”safe and effective”.

The captains of the drug industry know that their patented psychiatric drugs, when they are presented for FDA-approval, have only been tested in animal labs for days or weeks and in clinical trials on human subjects for only 6-8 weeks. They also know that many clinical trials involving psychiatrists use current drug-treated psychiatric patients who will then be in the process of going off - and therefore withdrawing from - their previous drugs. Industry executives also know that long-term trials of psych drugs are never done prior to FDA marketing approval.

On top of that, the results of any failed or equivocal human trials are usually locked away and only the one or two trials with positive results are presented to the FDA. These executives also know that their drugs will likely be eventually discovered to be addictive and therefore may cause the patient to remain on the expensive drug forever or have potentially serious withdrawal symptoms when discontinued.

The fine line between “normal” and “mentally ill”

The truth is that people diagnosed as "mentally ill" for life are often simply those unfortunates who have found themselves in acute or chronic states of potentially reversible crises or temporary “overwhelm” due to any number of preventable, treatable and even curable situations such as being in bad company, or being a victim of poverty, abuse, violence, torture, homelessness, discrimination, underemployment, malnutrition, addictions/withdrawal, electroshock “therapy” and/or exposure to neurotoxic chemicals in their food, air, water or prescription bottles.

Those labeled as the “mentally ill” are not much different from those of us who call ourselves “normal”. But we “normals” have just been lucky enough to have not yet decompensated because of some yet-to-happen, desperation-inducing life situation. And thus we may not have yet been given a billable diagnosis with a billable code number, and so we have not yet been prescribed some unaffordable prescription drug that could put us on the road to permanent disability and institutionalization. In other words, if we are lucky enough to remain unlabeled, we are also likely to remain off brain-altering drugs; and therefore we may remain away from the clutches of “the system”, within which it is very difficult to “just say no to drugs.”

My clinical experience with over a thousand “mentally ill” patients has led me to agree with Jackson’s and Whitaker’s assertions. I fully agree with their warnings that the chronic use of psychiatric drugs is a major cause of cognitive disorders, dementia, loss of memory, loss of IQ points, loss of creativity, loss of spirituality, loss of empathy, loss of energy, loss of strength, loss of impulse control and a multitude of metabolic adverse effects (like psych drug-induced obesity, hypertension, diabetes and hypercholesterolemia).

There is no question in my mind that these drugs can sicken the body, brain and soul by causing adverse drug effects such as insomnia, somnolence, increased depression, mania, anxiety, delusions, psychoses, paranoia, etc. So before filling the prescription, I strongly urge pill-takers to read the product insert information under WARNINGS, PRECAUTIONS, ADVERSE EFFECTS, CONTRAINDICATIONS, TOXICOLOGY, OVERDOSAGE and the ever-present BLACK BOX WARNINGS ABOUT SUICIDALITY.

Dr. Peter Breggin (www.breggin.org) has warned us in his writings about a new syndrome that he calls psychiatric drug-induced Chronic Brain Impairment (CBI). It is caused by the chronic usage, especially with large doses or with combinations of psychotropic drugs. CBI could also be regarded as a chemically traumatic brain injury (cTBI). In medical school, we half-joked that Thorazine and Haldol caused “chemical lobotomies” in its victims. Little did we know how close to the truth we were. Chemical lobotomy is a useful way to conceptualize the serious issue CBI or cTBI, because such brain-altered patients are often indistinguishable from those who have actually suffered a physically traumatic brain injury (TBI) or have been subjected to “ice-pick” lobotomies (which were popular in the 1940s and 50s before the drugs came on the market and rapidly replaced that entire dastardly industry).

America has a dementia and mental ill health epidemic on its hands that is so obvious but so grossly misunderstood, and because of that blindness, the epidemic is worsening, not because of the supposed progression of “mental illness”, but because of the continued chronic use of neurotoxic, non-curative drugs that are, in America, erroneously used as first-line "treatment."

Dr. Kohls is a family physician who, until his retirement in 2008, practiced holistic (non-drug) mental health care. His patients came to see him asking for help in getting off the psychotropic drugs to which they were addicted and that they knew were sickening and disabling them. He was successful in helping significant majorities of his patients get off or cut down their drugs using a thorough and therefore time-consuming program that was based on psychoeducational psychotherapy, brain nutrient therapy, a drastic change away from the malnourishing and often toxic Standard American Diet (SAD) plus a program of gradual, closely monitored drug withdrawal. Dr. Kohls warns against the abrupt discontinuation of any psychiatric drug because of the common, often serious withdrawal symptoms that can occur in patients who have been taking any dependency-inducing psychoactive drug, whether illicit or legal. Close consultation with an aware, informed physician who is familiar with treating drug withdrawal syndromes, who will read and study the appropriate literature and become aware of the dangers of psychiatric drugs and the nutritional needs of the drug-toxified and nutritionally-depleted brain.

Dr. Kohls is a past member of MindFreedom International, the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology and the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. He is the editor of the occasional Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter.

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ADA vs. TELECOMMUNICATIONS ACT: Court hearing in Santa Fe

To All,

On Tuesday, October 1, 2013, at 9:00 a.m., I will argue in the FirstJudicial District Court in Santa Fe that the Telecommunications Act of1996 does not override the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Thiscourt hearing will be open to the public. It will be in the new countycourthouse (corner of Montezuma and Sandoval), in Judge Sarah M.Singleton's court on the third floor.

I filed this case against the City of Santa Fe and AT&T almost threeyears ago. I argued that people with electrical sensitivity areprotected by the ADA and the Fourteenth Amendment, and that the City ofSanta Fe is therefore required to regulate radio frequency radiation inspite of the Telecommunications Act. In January 2011 AT&T transferredthe case to federal court, and federal District Judge James A. Parkerruled that the Telecommunications Act "preempts" the ADA. I appealedthat decision, and attorney Lindsay Lovejoy argued the case before theTenth Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver.

On October 9, 2012 the Court of Appeals handed us a partial victory. Itruled that the case should never have been transferred to federal court. It reversed Judge Parker and sent the case back to the State of NewMexico to be argued and decided all over again. I am representingmyself in state court.

What I am asking for is called a writ of mandamus, essentially a courtorder requiring the city to enforce its own laws. Since a city lawrequires a public hearing and a new permit for any intensification ofuse, I am arguing that AT&T may not increase the radiation from its celltowers without public hearings and new permits.

A week from Tuesday at 9:00 a.m. I will argue the case before JudgeSingleton.

I have attached the names of the IIT profs. and their report. At the end of the report, they have themselves admitted that many faculty members are working on the cell operators sponsored project. It includes names of 3 profs. of IIT Bombay.

It is most shocking news for me and probably the darkest day in the history of IIT. We will probably have to declare DARK MONDAY of IIT

I have recd. comments from the people, which I have reproduced below without their names.

Comment 1

Good Morning Sir,

This will be really a dark day for all of us. Its quiet surprising to see bias stand on the issue. Doctors are true and even your studies have proven that how adverse effects might be of radiation to all. Lets us all get to the root of this and see what exactly is happening?? Keep me posted. Please feel free to ask me if any help needed.

Comment 2

Today's Times reports that 25 professors and research workers mainly from various IITs have written an open letter to Union Ministry of Telecommunications and IT that present cell tower radiation norms are safest and that there is no need to change them !! It is surprising that these professors have suddenly woken up to write an unsolicited open letter to the govt. Obviously they have written at the behest of cell phone companies and their lobby.They must have been handsomely paid for their 'consultancy services' by the telephone companies.

Comment 3

Dear Prof.Girish Kumar,

It is indeed shocking! I think the script of USA model of doing business i.e. Only Profit , is being played out here in India to the T. You must have seen in the DVD (referring to Full Signal movie), how biilions were paid to both the parties in USA . ANY WAY THIS SHOULD SPUR THE ACTVISTS LIKE US TO MAKE MORE DETERMINED EFFORTS TO ENLIGHTEN THE PEOPLE AT LARGE.

IIT professors call cell tower rules safe, doctors advise caution

MUMBAI: Twenty-five professors and researchers mainly from the IITs working in the field of telecommunications have written an open letter to the Centre, stating that the country's cellphone tower radiation norms are among the safest in the world and there is no reason to change them.

But doctors and social activists say that cell tower radiation causes a range of health problems, from headache to memory loss to cancer, and demand stringent monitoring of radiation levels.

In their letter to the Union ministry of communications and information technology, headed byKapil Sibal, the professors have urged the government to avoid making ad-hoc decisions on restricting cell tower locations-so long as these meet existing guidelines-to avoid creating panic among people. The letter says there is "no further knowledge available" to warrant a change in cell tower safety recommendations.

The professors-drawn from IIT Bombay, Hyderabad, Madras, Delhi, Mandi and Kanpur, and IISc, Bangalore-discussed the issue internally before putting down their views on paper. All have worked in telecom research for 5-35 years

But Dr Ashish Mehta, a spinal and neurological surgeon with Breach Candy and Saifee hospitals, said, "Everyday gadgets give transitory stimulus. For instance, one does not stand before a microwave for 24 hours a day, so cells get a chance to repair themselves. It is when electromagnetic radiation is allowed to continuously bombard a cell that there is a problem. Cellphones have revolutionized the communication paradigm; though cells have an automatic repair system, when there is a disparity between damage and repair, it becomes hazardous."

Manoj Londhe, a member of the Mobile Tower Grievances Forum, said, "International studies show that cell tower radiations may not only be capable of causing cancer, but also cause neurotic disorders like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Most of all, prolonged exposure to radiation may cause DNA mutations and thus are most dangerous to foetuses."

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About Me

While I have always been extremely health conscious and am presently in excellent health, I did become temporarily out-of-commission (i.e. I was really sick) in 2005 with a number of at the time unexplainable symptoms. I was quite puzzled at the time because I had been eating mainly organically grown food, drinking spring water, doing Yoga every morning, and going to the gym several times a week. In other words, I was doing everything one is supposed to do to stay healthy. I was not supposed to get sick. It took me six months before discovering or even imagining the main source of the problem - which was in fact "overexposure to electromagnetic" - especially microwave - radiation. I was living within 200 meters of two cell phone towers at the time and within 500 meters of a 3rd one with numerous WiFi signals bleeding into my apartment from adjacent neighbors. I developed a host of symptoms, which are found in what has been misleadingly described as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) -- but much more accurately described as Radio Wave or Microwave Sickness. Large numbers of people in the USA suddenly started getting sick in 1984...